7 days in healthcare (November, 18th-24th, 2024)

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Summary

The most impactful news in health this week were:

  • Biomedicine: the results of the ambitious Human Cell Atlas project appear.
  • Global health: final agreement at COP29, by which rich countries will finance those with fewer resources in the fight against climate change, but only from 2035.
  • International health policy: Trump’s appointments in health – generally anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown people during the pandemic – foreshadow great changes.
  • National health policy: the debate and the unknowns about the continuity of MUFACE continue. No less important news in Navarra: according to the draft of the new law of the Navarra Health Service, new staff additions will be based on the labor regime.

Biomedicine

  • A Human Cell Atlas appears, which is compared to Wikipedia. The project was launched in 2016 by biologists Aviv Regev, from Genentech, and Sarah Teichman, from the University of Cambridge, together with more than a hundred other scientists. They aim to catalogue every type of cell in the human body, from development to ageing. It is estimated that 37.2 “trillion” (American) cells have been catalogued. This week this initiative is presenting the first studies. This project would not have been possible without the Human Genome Project, and the NIH Brain Initiative. This is presented as a catalogue of every type of cell in our body, which will allow us to understand certain processes of inflammation or tumour development.

Global Health

  • Pact in extremis at COP29 to finance climate action in poor countries. They will allocate 300 billion dollars a year from 2035. The agreement leaves a bittersweet taste and has been received with harsh criticism by social organisations, who call it “disappointing”.

International health policy

  • Trump’s choices for Health Agencies suggest that a radical change is coming. Elections of anti-vaccines, opposed to lockdowns in the pandemic and contrary to conventional medical thinking. What a survey shows is that after the pandemic that killed more than a million Americans, many Americans have lost confidence in science and medicine.
  • President Petro’s battle against the EPSs in Colombia continues. The Health Superintendency intervenes in the EPS Coosalud, the fifth largest in Colombia. It is the eighth EPS that the government of Gustavo Petro takes control of, which has sought to eliminate this figure through a debated and so far failed legal reform. The EPS Coosalud has more than 3.2 million members. Among the entities that the State has taken possession of are large institutions such as the private Sanitas, the mixed Nueva EPS or Famisanar.

National Health Policy (Spain)

  • The disasters continue after the DANA in the Valencian Community. The struggle of the Dana peoples: 16,000 children without schooling, 2,150 uninhabitable houses; health risks; and a huge economic hole. The public health risks due to floods are still latent.
  • MUFACE’s continuity in doubt. In what appears to be a fight between the Ministry of Public Administration and the Ministry of Health, the former asks the insurers at what price they would be willing to provide the service, announcing a new tender. On the other hand, the public procurement court paralyses the awarding of the MUGEJU and ISFAS tenders, following a demand from UNIPROMEL. CSIF announces a large mobilisation on 14 December, in defence of the MUFACE model.
  • No more new statutory employees in the Navarre Health Service. According to the provisions of the Navarre Health Service Bill, which establishes that new additions would be as “permanent labour personnel”. The unions, as could not be otherwise, oppose it. Always defending the “tenured position”, one of the scourges of the system.

Companies

  • International
    • Johnson & Johnson threatened in the United Kingdom, with demands on talcum powder.
  • National
    • Biosim reminds us that future savings from biosimilars require an attractive market. Biosimilars generated savings of 1.8 billion euros in 2023 in Spain and projections estimate that this could add up to 22.295 billion by 2030. However, experts warn that the sustainability of this market requires tax incentives, simplified regulation and balanced public purchasing strategies and a reduction in price pressure that guarantee the viability of companies.

Biomedicine

Global Health

International health policy

National health policy

Companies

This post is also available in: Spanish